Four Categories Of Love

The love of affection is a term that I feel I have had in my life and was easily portrayed as a need. My parents are the people in who brought me into this world. They have shown me their ways of becoming a person- by me making my own decisions, and most importantly having a walk with Christ. They may have been a pain to me through discipline, but they always have shown me their love through affection.

Love is a basic need in every living thing. The ability to be social and interact with the living things around you is very important. Some would say that the root of some mental illness’ is from the lack of love, or too much love. In the book by Gary Chapman, “The 5 Love Languages” he talks about the importance of love and how we all communicate love in different ways, as well as how much of an impact these different languages have on every day life.

Love is a powerful emotion that every human being has experience at least once in their life. There are numerous connotations that refer to this emotion, but there is only one kind of love that can make a person change completely in unexpected ways. It is the kind of love that consumes the soul and everything within. Mixed with excitement, adventure, heartbreak, happiness and joy; it is a big ball of feelings, all concentrated in one simple, yet extremely complicated necessity to have, protect, please and give all of oneself to that one person. In certain occasions, love can grow very intense and, consequently,

Love is one of the most indescribable concepts that exist in one’s life experiences. Some argue that love is one of the most important things to have in life, which can shape and mold one’s interpretation of the world. Others may claim that love is an illusion, which serves as a distraction preventing individuals from being enlightened. The interpretation of love could be ambiguous, but the important thing is that love is very powerful and can severely affect an individual’s behavior, expectations in life, and sole responsibilities. Many writers have written about the power of love. Some of these works include, “The Love Suicides at Amijima”, “Death Constant Beyond Love”, and “Gilgamesh”. The most distinctive and comprehensive story involving

The human idea of love is quite possibly the most misunderstood in today’s society. Love can be between a man and woman, mother/father and their kids, or even really good friends. However, these relationships of love go through many interactions and stages to start and progress. Many psychological events must occur and be worked through in order to be successful. All relationships must endure the five perspectives of human behavior. These perspectives are biological, learning, social and cultural, cognitive, and psychodynamic influences.

Concepts of love and desire cross cultures and time periods, defining human interaction and goals with its powerful effect on the human mind. The line between love and desire is not always clear and people from philosophers to scientists have attempted to understand these complex emotions and how they may be right or wrong. Desire has been characterized mainly as a distraction that can hinder humans on their solitary paths to self- enlightenment, but rather than abstaining from desire entirely to better reach enlightenment, it is should be transformed through the guidance of the wise and made into a valuable resource in the search for truth rather than being seen as the enemy. Desire, when left unguided, can be a problem for those who give into it, however, a desire that has transformed into a sort of love with virtuous intentions can help one on their way to enlightenment when used in the correct way. The types of desire as they relate to what enlightenment is and the way it can be achieved are all of great importance to the potential use of desire as a resource.

“Love is one of the most profound emotions known to human beings” (psychologytoday.com). Everyone has had at least one relationship in their lifetime filled with fervor and jubilation. In fact, it typically starts at birth with a loving family ready to endure their cheerful child. Since it is different for everyone, the next amorous relationship could lie within anything from friendly relationship to a romantic one. The wondrous emotions that are felt are something people search for forever, but not everyone encounters every kind of relationship there is.

Unlike Eros love that is solely based on a strong emotion and only being shown the good quality of each person, Philos love is based on a “give and take” where two people benefit mutually in varies way from each other. Being giving and taking equally is important in this type of love, and the concern that each partner is benefiting is essential to each partner. It can be statement in truth that Philos love is a higher type of love then Eros, where love is not just based on a strong emotion experienced before the understanding and appreciation of both partners that is gained from the pervious and continuing friendship.

Like storge love we have Phileo love, also known as the love of friendship. “Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure or burden” (C.S. Lewis,

on for decades. Some of us have felt love, and some of us have been in love. But

While people are often able to identify when they feel the emotion love, love itself seems to defy definition.  In her polemic “Against Love”, Laura Kipnis argues that love cannot exist as traditional expressions of love such as marriage, monogamy, and mutuality.  However, in her argument, she defines love incorrectly by equating love to expressions of love. This definition lacks a component essential to understanding the abstract concept of love: emotion. Recognizing love as emotion helps us realize that, contrary to Kipnis’ argument love by nature transcends all expressions of love. Love is subjective and exists in any and all forms. In her argument that love cannot survive as conventional expressions of love, Kipnis ignores the nature of love as emotion in favor of equating love to different expressions of love. Love is a force which exists above expressions of love; a true understanding of love can only come from an assessment of how individuals, not societies, respond to the emotion.

We only call a certain category of those in love, lovers (Symposium 7) and in contrast with what Aristophanes had said about lovers being in search of their other half, Diotima argues that lovers love what is good. After all, the aim of loving beautiful and good things, of course, is to possess them, because the possession of beautiful and good things is wisdom and with wisdom comes happiness and happiness is deep-down what everyone is ultimately in pursuit of.

Philia, eros, and agape are three different Greek terms for the word. These three terms explain the different types of love a human being can acquire. Philia is a love of friendship, which is grounded in commonality. However, eros is a kind of love that seeks something from the other person or thing. Lastly, agape is the love that wills the good of the other and is completely self-giving. The meanings of these Greek terminologies, philia, eros, and agape, allow us to better understand and discuss our relationship with God and human fulfillment.

In M. Scott Peck’s work, The Road Less Traveled, he says “Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words” (81). He also seeks to define love as “The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's personal growth” (81). For Peck, he recognizes that the nature of love is so mysterious that a true satisfactory definition of love has yet to be created and suspects his own definition to be inadequate. He also recognizes that love is categorically vast in that it is divided into eros, philia, agape, and others.

Again, philia is another level of love and King describes it as “an intimate affection between personal friends, it is types of reciprocal love. On this level you love because you are loved. It is friendship” (King, 400). In another word, Philia doesn’t require the physical attraction and passion that is standard in eros rather depend on standard friendship. Philia love is deeper than eros, but usually non-sexual intimacy between close friends and family members or as a deep bond establishes by soldiers as they fight alongside each other in the battlefield. In fact, philia works on the idea that an individual loves because that individual is loved by someone else. Perhaps, the feeling of love that experiences between soldiers in battle